Automakers claim new fuel economy ratings will put hundreds of thousands out of work (Source: Business Week)

Supporters of increased efficiency standards claim the numbers are inflated

The
battle between the auto industry and the federal government over changes
to fuel economy regulations is exploding. Lawmakers in Washington want to
impose much more efficient standards on future vehicles that could see a fleet
wide fuel economy average of 62 mpg in effect by 2025.

Some in the automotive industry argue that the costs to reach the lofty 62 mpg
fleet wide average will be much higher than the cost of burning more fuel in
less efficient vehicles for consumers. Automakers have previously claimed that
the costs would have a dire impact on the industry.

A new
study by the Center for Automotive Research has been published and the
study claims that the rise in efficiency standards by 2025 to 62 mpg could add up
to $9,790 to the cost of a new vehicle and will reduce sales by 5.5 million
units. The report also claims that the resultant price increase would force a
reduction of 260,000 automotive industry jobs due to reduced demand for
vehicles by consumers.

On the other side of the battle, those pushing for the increased efficiency
standards claim that the tech needed to meet the efficiency standards would
only add $770 to $3,500 to the price of a new vehicle.

David Friedman,
deputy director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' Clean Vehicles program and
supporter of the new efficiency mandate, said, "The Obama administration
should ignore this industry-advocate propaganda piece and focus on setting the
strongest vehicle efficiency and global warming pollution standards based on
credible scientific analysis."

President and CEO of the Union, Jay Baron, says that the main difference in
cost between the industry and government studies depends on how much the price
of the technology will come down over the next 15 years.

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This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

Since you have admitted you have a childish grudge against me, I'm taking your post with a grain of salt.

My point was that the private sector is advancing auto-tech at a very good rate. Not because of government intervention.

I'm not going to indulge your little bitch fest and debate every little piece of tech I listed, or the dozens more I didn't pull off the top of my head. I think you're being deliberately obtuse and it's just silly.

Just for your information, the ECU is just ONE of up to 50 processors used in modern cars. You obviously have no clue about car electronics if you think the ECU is running, for example, Ford's SYNC system or an in-car entertainment package from the factory.

I'm all for private industry. I'm not a liberal or a socialist who thinks that a government run (and easily abused)welfare state is going to produce progress like a capitalist system will. I'm all about survival of the fittest, personal responsibility and the ability of people/companies with good ideas to be able to profit off them.

I'm familiar with car electronics and electronics in general. I made a few dataloggers to interface with my cars' ECUs so I could pull the raw data down from them, and playing with an Arduino microcontroller makes me respect the amount of work that can be done by a low powered processor.

The vast majority of the processors in a car are going to be very low powered, things like the ECU, the transmission's control unit, the climate control unit, the traction control unit, the ABS control unit, the trip computer, etc. The most powerful processor is going to be in a newer car's media center.